A Drink of Water

She came every morning to draw water
Like an old bat staggering up the field:
The pump’s whooping cough, the bucket’s clatter
And slow diminuendo as it filled,
Announced her. I recall
Her grey apron, the pocked white enamel
Of the brimming bucket, and the treble
Creak of her voice like the pump’s handle.
Nights when a full moon lifted past her gable
It fell back through her window and would lie
Into the water set out on the table.
Where I have dipped to drink again, to be
Faithful to the admonishment on her cup,
Remember the Giver, fading off the lip.
Seamus Heaney


It's National Poetry Day here and I'm continuing with the damp theme - water today rather than dew.  It's amazing how Seamus Heaney has a poem to fit almost every image. I'm cheating  a bit for this is an image of the water at St Gobnait's Well but it's been worked on today. Full of magic don't you think?? (see extra for the well itself)


A dreadful cold and damp day but then the sun came out at 4pm and it's now lovely! I risked a walk around the circuit and was too hot. Swallows soaring, the distant sound of a cuckoo and everything glistening after the rain. Sad to see so many tree wind burnt after storm Hannah though, their leaves blackened.


A new blog - I struggled a bit over this one, the well with the astonishing St Michael.


And we've started reading the new book by Robert MacFarlane - Underworld - one picks up when the other puts down. What a good writer he is.